{"id":914048,"date":"2026-07-05T11:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T11:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/914048\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T11:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T11:44:14","slug":"dodgers-eliezer-alfonzo-hopes-his-sister-stepmother-will-be-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/914048\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers’ Eliezer Alfonzo hopes his sister, stepmother will be found"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019ll be the culmination of nine minor-league seasons. But Eliezer Alfonzo<\/a>\u2018s major-league debut on Sunday won\u2019t include his family watching from Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

Alfonzo\u2019s younger sister, Eliana, and stepmother, Patricia, have been missing since last month when earthquakes caused widespread devastation<\/a> in his home country of Venezuela<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been trying to support my dad a lot, every day talking to him, trying to be with him,\u201d Alfonzo said of the elder Eliezer Alfonzo<\/a>, a retired major-league catcher. \u201cIt\u2019s a little tough from here because I would like to be there with him, supporting him every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

His father, of course, would love to be in attendance for his son\u2019s debut. He told him as much when he heard the Dodgers<\/a> were calling him up.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers switched their backup catchers Saturday, optioning Chuckie Robinson<\/a>. They saw an opportunity to give Alfonzo some runway behind Dalton Rushing<\/a>, with starting catcher Will Smith\u2019s stay on the injured list expected to extend through the All-Star break.<\/p>\n

The elder Eliezer Alfonzo, however, is doing whatever he can to locate his wife and daughter. Their dog was found alive, which gave the younger Eliezer Alfonzo hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just gotta stay together as a family, as a country,\u201d Alfonzo said. \u201cBecause I feel like we\u2019re a beautiful country, we\u2019re a really beautiful people over there. It\u2019s not just about my family, it\u2019s all families that have lost people already. But we\u2019ve got hope. We just pray, we ask God to give them back to us alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alfonzo\u2019s locker in the clubhouse is next to countryman Miguel Rojas<\/a>\u2019 stall. Rojas\u2019 wife, Mariana, and their two children were in Venezuela, planning to renew Mariana\u2019s passport and seek Venezuelan citizenship for their children, when the earthquakes hit. They managed to stay safe<\/a> and have returned to the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to be here for him,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cAt the end of the day, that\u2019s the best thing I can do for him, is being a good teammate and being a friend for him. Because I know there\u2019s going to be ups and downs. He\u2019s going to have a lot of time to be caught [up] in baseball, and that\u2019s going to probably take his mind away from stuff. But sometimes he\u2019s probably going to feel weak, and he\u2019s going to start thinking about his family. So I\u2019m going to be here, I\u2019m right next to him. And that\u2019s what I told him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rojas, who played against the elder Eliezer Alfonzo for years in Venezuela, reached out Saturday morning and promised him he\u2019d save the ball from his son\u2019s first major-league hit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019ll be the culmination of nine minor-league seasons. But Eliezer Alfonzo\u2018s major-league debut on Sunday won\u2019t include his…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":914049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[369512,1582,276,4471,2385,2442,44517,350406,246,2961,224,5337,7088,25267,369511,32075,6613,307121,32322,18913],"class_list":["post-914048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-beautiful-people","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-child","tag-day","tag-dodgers","tag-earthquake","tag-eliezer-alfonzo","tag-family","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-lot","tag-major-league-debut","tag-mariana","tag-miguel-rojas","tag-sister","tag-stepmother","tag-venezuela","tag-wife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116867200922302475","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}